This volume aims to critically explore this paradoxical situation and to consider the future direction of the study of tourism. It charts the development of tourism as an area of study, analyzing approaches taken from an international context; it critiques contemporary epistemologies of tourism framed around the social science vs. management dichotomy and offers alternative approaches to the study of tourism. In doing so, it engages directly with a range of important academic debates: what tourism ‘is’ in an academic context, the purpose of studying tourism and how it should be studied in the future.
This important and stimulating volume will have global appeal to higher level students, academics and researchers within tourism and related disciplines.
Richard Sharpley is Professor of Tourism and Development at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK.